The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

His head unnaturally aching, Barney Mayerson woke to find himself in an unfamiliar bedroom in an unfamiliar conapt building. Beside him, the covers up to her bare, smooth shoulders, an unfamiliar girl slept on, breathing lightly through her mouth, her hair a tumble of cotton-like white. I’ll bet I’m late for work, he said to himself, slid from the bed, and tottered to a standing position with eyes shut, keeping himself from being sick. For all he knew he was several hours’ drive from his office; perhaps he was not even in the United States. However, he was on Earth; the gravity that made him sway was familiar and normal. And there in the next room by the sofa a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.

Barefoot, he padded into the living room, and seated himself by the suitcase; he opened it, clicked switches, and turned on Dr. Smile. Meters began to register and the mechanism hummed. “Where am I?” Barney asked it. “And how far am I from New York?” That was the main point. He saw now a clock on the wall of the apt’s kitchen; the time was 7:30 A.M. Not late at all. The mechanism which was the portable extension of Dr. Smile, connected by micro-relay to the computer itself in the basement level of Barney’s own conapt building in New York, the Renown 33, tinnily declared, “Ah, Mr. Bayerson.”